Tuesday, October 25, 2005

The Left, the Right, and the Wrong

You can't open up your mind, boys, to every conceivable point of view. - Bob Dylan

Last July 27, the US State Department very thoughtfully posted a resource tool for journalists and media consumers entitled "How to Identify Misinformation." Though "there are no exact rules" to tell whether a story is true or false, the State Department offers clues. First among them, "Does the story fit the pattern of a conspiracy theory?"

Does the story claim that vast, powerful, evil forces are secretly manipulating events? If so, this fits the profile of a conspiracy theory. Conspiracy theories are rarely true, even though they have great appeal and are often widely believed. In reality, events usually have much less exciting explanations.

The U.S. military or intelligence community is a favorite villain in many conspiracy theories.

To demonstrate a pattern of falsity, the "counter-misinformation team" provides links to just three of the "many conspiracy theory websites which contain a great deal of unreliable information": Rense.com, Joe Vialls and Conspiracy Planet.

Rense.com boasts that the State Department ranks it "number one," but I find that unwarranted in light of the pattern the State Department establishes in its attempt to discredit the critical study of High Crimes.

Consider its solitary example of 9/11 conspiracy theory: Thierry Meyssan's Pentagon cruise missile. I've written numerous times here what I think of the supposition that something other than Flight 11 hit the Pentagon. Regardless of what any of us think, it remains the most divisive wedge issue and energy sink for 9/11 activists. Of course the State Department would draw attention to it, to the neglect of all others. No mention of insider trading, squelched investigations and coincident wargames. The "counter-misinformation team" is trying to proscribe counter-information by accentuating the preposterous. Meyssan's work becomes, in a sense, "approved" conspiracy theory, because it's the only one to receive official recognition. Not only in this State Department publication, but in virtually every mainstream treatment of alternative appraisals of 9/11 the "no plane" theory still takes pride of place. (A similar process is occurring with respect to reports of Katrina "conspiracy theory," in which soft rumours of the levees being blown take precedence over hard analysis of the intentional withholding of aid.)

Two of the three sites singled out by the State Department are, rightly or wrongly, widely perceived as containing anti-semitic bias. Rense.com's enthusiastic support of Ernst Zundel, and its linking to revisionist accounts of his "heroic struggle," may be made in the spirit of idealized libertarianism, but Zundel is a Nazi, and his kampf is not my own. The late Joe Vialls did some very commendable work, particularly his series on the Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman murders, but he also tended to see Jews under the bed an awful lot ("Kosher Kerry Cons Christian America", for one mild instance).

What the State Department is doing by holding up these sites - one, Vialls, rather obscure - as exemplars of "conspiracy theory," is to administer a poison pill to contrary analysis. To the poor journalist or media consumer taking cues from the "counter-misinformation team," it will appear as though conspiracy theory has an essential core of anti-semitism. But there's maybe more going on than that.

In the first part of my interview with ritual abuse-mind control survivor Kathleen Sullivan, she made the following observation:

Another interesting factor is that most of the more outspoken disinfo agents present together at conferences that either pander to “conspiracy theorists” and/or to the sector that is pro-Aryan and/or “Patriot.” Not all people in the Patriot movement are pro-Aryan. However, I have learned that most of the mind-control disinfo agents are, privately if not publicly, avowed racists. This would seem to be a rather odd connection, if one did not know that many Aryan organizations and cell groups use “trauma-based mind control” on their members, to ensure their submission and compliance.

I find this fascinating. Sullivan says that the occult-intelligence perpetrators of ritual abuse belong to the Aryan networks, as do those who have claimed leadership of its exposure. This is one of those things that threw me for a cognitive loop when I began discovering this material, which nearly tempted me to pretend the evidence for it didn't exist. (Another one was that many of the self-styled champions of mind control survivors become their lovers and handlers.) These characters, like Fritz Springmeier, Mark Phillips and Ted Gunderson, are either drawn from or pander to the extreme right: the militias, the White Nationalists, and the "Patriot" communities. (Linda Blood, author of The New Satanists, had a WTF? moment in the mid-90s at a ritual and cult abuse conference, to the delight of debunker Evan Harrington: "Blood, who spoke later in the day, protested that she was 'unhappy to be following someone [Marqui] who is pushing the Protocols of the Elders of Zion,' which she said was anti-Semitic trash. Blood's protest deeply angered some and bewildered others, while about four of Blood's friends clapped in support.")

The conspiratocracy nurtures a false opposition on the far right, to cause gentler hearts across the spectrum to turn away in disgust from inquiring after darker secrets, and perhaps also to provide cover to a pool of low-level functionaries.

And it's no exaggeration to say Nazis are throwing their thought-bombs at us, attempting to make their cause respectable and infiltrate our side and - worse - our minds. On the "White Nationalist" board Stormfront, a recent post from "Free Zundel Now" spoke of success spreading a "stealth article" calling for Bush's impeachment on "forums that ordinarily won't take our kind of subject matter." "Free Zundel Now" tried it on the RI board, and the Nazi spamming was exposed.

From Stormfront's "Celtic Nation," advice on infiltration:

...you have to speak a language they will hear, and speak to what they will hear, and as you said, point out racial realities. The constant drone of Jew bashing will start to turn people off. It does make WN's look like kooks and conspiracy theorists, and hearkens people back to nutty stereotypes of Col. Klink from Hogan's Heroes, and paranoid conspiracy theorists who are mentally off-center.

When I discuss Israel and the Jews, I try to talk of the evils of the state of Israel, and if they are ready for it, introduce more. The fact is that most of what we struggle against is the big picture - the superstructures in place by the Jews in power.

Sometimes Israel means Israel, sometimes Zionist means Zionist. But sometimes it means something else. We need to know this, we need to become sensitive to the sometimes encrypted message, if we are to meet and defeat the true enemy. Because in every instance, Nazi means Nazi.

1286 Comments:

Perhaps we should develop the use of "coincidence theory" a bit more and use it for the brain-laundered. We could attribute all situations that make the mind squirm to it and perhaps a few would see their own "blinders".

I just want to thank you for gifting us with the term "thought bomb," whether you coined it or not. I should hope it gains wide usage, because the science of inflicting mental violence is today reaching new degrees of effectiveness, and the attacks are becoming more calculated and stealthy. We need words / symbols / memes like these to help comprehend and communicate about these mental-influence tactics.

I am surprised, though, at the clumsiness of the State Dept.'s attempt at meta-disinformation in this case, especially in light of the Pentagon's announced intention to spread its own disinfo through the "Office of Strategic Influence." They seem to be rather imprudently tipping their hand.

Anonymous One,this is psy-op's in the 21st century.Don't worry they now control the whole spectrum,the white ,the gray annd the black popaganda. All you hear and see is tanted by the masters of your reality.Mind F-----D merica doesn't have a clue,look for a real big event to happen.I have an idea,let's all get the flu shot that Rummies old buddies make,later.

Great article, but once again, the reminder: NOT all anti-israel folks are anti-jew or white nationalist or nazis. There are lots of perfectly valid reasons to be angry at Israel that have nothing to do with misinfo or as imformation as a virus, slipped under the door like a wolf in sheeps clothing, to spread anti-semitism.

Thanks for posting this Jeff. I have begun to realise the scope and exent of the dis-info out there. Some of the purpose of sites like Rense or PrisonPlanet is to dilute real info with bad causing almost insurmountable confusion amongst anything but the afficianados (with brains and time on their hands).

You may be able to read a good and truthful article on Rense but you're not going to send it to your colleagues or family because you are going to look cuckoo when they see the general tone of the site.

Witness the mental energy wasted on the 9/11 pod issue. It's irrelevent compared to other less disputable facts - like the illegal selling of the steel from the WTC wreck or insider trading on that day. There are hundreds of indicators of gov involvement and it should be 'case closed' time but you just know that nothing so dramatic would ever happen.

On this topic, does anyone understand what Fintan Dunne is up to? He exposed loads of CIA dis-info sites but then utterly failed to provide any proof.

I tend to believe Mike Ruppert on most things - am I wrong in this belief? Im not sure I have any way of really knowing apart from trusting my gut instinct and in many ways that's not enough.

OwlInDaylight: I prefer "Think-Bomb", myself. Brings up the mental imagery of a stinkbomb: drives everyone away from the target... seems to fit pretty well with the poison pill disinfo campaigns.

As to the whole "clumsiness" of the disinfo, they're relying on the fact that most of the people who clue in to the facts will be disregarded by the normal everyday Americans who've been pre-indocrinated to disregard everything said by unofficial sources, ESPECIALLY the kind of people who notice this stuff. If there ain't a manual, if it ain't on TV, it doesn't exist.

This whole thing reminds me of a warning I got regarding "banker conspiracies" being the most derided of the bunch when I clued into it. How convenient that when the most logical system of social control comes under fire, it's the most heavily defended!

Funny though, how the Disinfo Agents must attack the sources and ignore the truth, as they cannot refute the information.

The worst part is that the State Department notice blankets the entire US Military and Intelligence community. Yeah, the grunts blow crap up and ask questions later; and yeah, some of the spooks are involved in shit they probably shouldn't be. But for every villain, there's got to be six average Joes and Janes trying to do right by their country, do their job, and bring home a paycheck for their kids.

The fact that the scumbags shelter in the same halls of honor as the soldiers disgusts me (and a good percentage of the soldiers as well), and I believe that it's every American's job to play "Out the Traitor" (kind of like Carlos Mencia's "Out the Beaner", just without a friendly sense of humor).

America is more than a Government, or a geographical location. America is a memetic superorganism that lives in the minds of its citizens. It's in the idea that living free is living best, that people should be judged by their own merits rather than those of their parents and ancestors. It's about questioning misguided authority and demanding competence from our leaders. And most importantly, it's about taking responsibility for ourselves and our actions, and then stepping up and helping our fellow Americans stand tall in this world gone mad.

I was reminded once again, while reading your essay and the comments, of a comment by someone (and I'm paraphrasing), "The whole 9/11 business was so sloppy, it's almost like we were supposed to see a conspiracy".

One of the earlier posters mentioned Mike Ruppert; he has been roundly criticized for his pushing the Club Of Rome's 'peak oil' agenda, which to some makes a powerful smokescreen for global depopulation. Personally, I've been of the mindset that anyone and everyone who has ever had their livelihood dependent on government largesse (be it direct or contracted employment) is suspect.

There is far too much mental and emotional attachment through jingoism and daily sustenance to ever divorce one's self from their government paymasters. True, independent journalists and commentators can also be compromised, but the fundamental question to be asked is: who benefits? What does the person making the invective have to gain besides job security or other forms of compensation?

The old saying goes about the CIA that once you work for 'the company' you never leave. If you extend this to Bin Laden's jihadis for hire and put it in the context of a bloated military/intelligence establishment searching for job security after the Cold War ended, it suddently makes perfect sense.

Those who would protest that the military and intelligence communities are full of patriots would do well to remember just how spirited their defense of America actually was on 9/11. Payne Stewart's plane can get an interception in less than 20 minutes, but not a damn military or intelligence officer lifted a finger to save the American people that day. And not a single person was hung for treason or dereliction of duty. That in itself speaks volumes.

The ugly truth is that we, the American people are on our own against a legion of statist traitors who would gladly classify us as 'enemy combatants' and stuff us into ovens if their fearless leaders told them to do so. Just like the Roman empire was betrayed from within, so too is our empire.

What's truly ironic is we see the same sick alliances today that we saw in World War II: the dual-citizen Zionist 'Neocons' are collaborating with the offspring of the Wall Street industrialists who financed Hitler's rise to power (A.k.a. the Bush family). Barry Chamish was more right about this than he would rather admit.

You know, it's funy to me how any mention of White pride(or, pride in one's state of racial existence) is almost always lumped together with "white power". FYI- there are a lot of us "white" people who are aware of and proud of our Western European history w/o feeling it necessary to belittle or degrade any other racial group.

As far as i can tell, EVERYONE should be aware of, and proud of, his or her lineage and genetic birthright. As it stands right now, in America, any White male who says "White males are the BEST!" is labeled a Nazi. If you look at any other racial group, ther claims to racial superiority ar either "cute" or "empowering".

As for Zundel being a Nazi: yes, he is. BUT, he also has some good points bout the facts of the aleged "Holocaust"(which, i might add, serves ONE genetic group VERY, VERY well). If YOU grew up in Germany and had to watch it handed to a certain religious/political group on a platter wouldn't you want to know the truth?

Anyway, for all of you white folks out there: it is OK to be White, and to be proud of that. It's also OK to be blak, Jewish, Indian etc. Being proud of yourself and your culture is NOT hatred. Advocating your culture at the expense of others IS(see Isreal, Jewish racism, African racism et al).

Finally, dson't buy this connection between "Patriotic" groups and "Nazi"s. I, for my part, have never met a "Nazi". I'm pretty sure they all retired or died by now. Some people might adopt the look, the talk, or the ideas of the National Socialist movement, but the "Nazi"s ceased beimng a threat years ago.

Trust me on this: anyone who is a real racist threat, who has a true agaenda, is NOT going to be foolish enough to publicly abnnounce it. Not in this society, where all and sundry are waiting, anxiously, to attack any "White racist" they sense, while encouraging and allowing every other kind of anti-white racism(NOI, ATZLAN...) to prosper unhindered.

Like it or not, America was founded by white people, for white people. The fact that other formerly enslaved peoples got caught up in our freedoms is just a bonus.

It's time to stop acting like white people who like being white are the only danger in America.

Anonymous 10:37: Just because Germany was defeated in Word War II doesn't mean that Nazism ceased to exist. In reality, it simply went underground. It's alive and well, and it has learned its lessons. No more gaudy uniforms and bloody rhetoric. They much subtler now, but they're still right here among us. Posing as a proud white American is borderline. You didn't do anything to be born white, so what is there to be proud of?

I'm not trying to be provocative, honestly; my point is simply to accentuate the fact that it seems, IMHO, that the ONLY race that isn't allowed to advocate for itself is the white race. I'm really not approving of racial hatred. In fact, i'm completely opposed to inhuman treatment, speech or behavior on any level. My only point is that this is a very delicate issue, and not one with clear-cut rules or beliefs.

In my personal experience, only the most naive of persons can conscientously subscribe race/hate beliefs. Such ideas are just not tenable in the 21st century. Those who would be kings wil use ANY image or idea they can to "divide and conquer", even to the point of INCITING RACIAL HATRED.

In other words: we're not up against "racists" per se as much as "elitists". That these elitists happen to be of, mostly, like genetics is simply a result of social structure. These people will use/trust/employ ANY means of achieving a given objective, it seems. Why not play the race/hate card? The more "they" divide "us the better (for "them"), right?

I'm not apologizing for the horrors enacted in the name of "white race". It happened, happens. But, so does every other sort of racial hatred. It's part of life. Just don't go chasing "Nazi's" and "Patriots" when the real enemy is much, much, much more difficult to discern.

What's interesting is that nobody seems to be picking up on the obvious flaw in any 'racial' theory: that in order for the 'race' to be exalted, the achievements of the individual must be comandeered by the interests of the group. This is collectivism in its most heinous and basic form.

If you need to belong to a group in order to derive your own self worth, then you have serious flaw in your own identity as an individual. This goes as much for the elitist power brokers who run the world today as much as it goes for the rank and file bigot who shaves his head and quotes from Mein Kampf. Racism and elitism are the hallmarks of the intellectual parasite.

It's no accident that not long after Malcolm X said 'the Nation Of Islam and the KKK have the same paymasters' that he was killed. That is the biggest lie of all: that the racial supremacists actually even serve their so-called 'race.' In fact it can be argued that all roads lead to Wall Street on this one, and if you follow the works of Anthony Sutton you know what other monsters were created by that clique for nefarious purposes (read the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and now Communist China).

Jeff's post set off a pretty complex train of thought for me, and I'm not sure how clearly I can convey it, but please bear with me.

1) As long as left or libertarian conspiracy theorists see Israel as an important part of the problem, they will be subject to either infiltration by neo-Nazis or discrediting on the grounds of closeness to neo-Nazis. It's possible that this just goes with the territory (much as the left 50 years ago got in trouble any time their positions parallelled those of the Communist Party), but perhaps there's something more going on.

Why should teeny-tiny little Israel, which is barely a fingernail clipping on the map of Asia, be considered a major source of anyone's problems? I mean, we all know the Big Bad of the current era is the United States. So how did Israel come to be such a bogeyman?

2) When I was a kid in the 50's, Israel didn't loom large in anyone's legend. In fact, my sweet old Jewish grandmother viewed the Israelis with something close to contempt. She saw the world, as nearly as I can tell, in terms of strict early 20th century Darwinism. In her eyes, the Jews who came to America were like the apes who came down out of the trees to become human, and those who stayed behind were the evolutionary losers. It was sad but probably inevitable that they would have fallen prey to the Nazis. And it was nice for Israel to serve as a refuge for the traumatized survivors, but you couldn't really expect much of them.

I doubt that my grandmother's views were universal even among Jews of her generation, but they were certainly not uncommon. For the immigrants and children of immigrants, it was their own epic journey that was the central myth. Israel was at best a footnote.

3) So how and when did this change? Whatever it was, it had happened by the time my grandmother died in the early 70's. A few of her neighbors had trees planted in Israel in her name, and I wondered about that because I knew she would have hated it. What had occurred in the meanwhile, of course, was the 1967 war. That was when Israel became badass and American Jews started to identify with it.

It wasn't just Israel, of course, in the late 60's, American culture in general began to worship badassery. You can see it in the movies. I don't know if it was a natural cultural change, or if someone in the bowels of the CIA was dreaming of American Empire and tapping Hollywood to create a warrior ethos. But it kept gaining steam in the course of the 70's, and worship of Israel and particularly of Israeli ruthlessness was a part of it.

For the Neocons, who were coming up at exactly this same period and making alliances with the military-industrial complex types, this was a godsend. There had always been a tension among American Jews between alienation and assimilation, between feeling slightly strange and foreign and wanting to be accepted by the movers and shakers, between maintaining a Jewish identity and blending in. The sea-change of the 70's made it possible to have both, at least if you were a Neocon. If the cause of American Empire was identical to the cause of an Israeli mini-empire in the Near East, and if American Jews were the pivot-point between them, then that tension vanished. It was all one thing, and there were no difficult choices to be made.

4) Of course, in the long run this has not been a good thing for anybody except the Neocons. Israel has been so ripped up by trying to maintain even a mini-mini-empire over the West Bank that it is doubtful it can ever be a viable state. American Jews have been saddled with the likes of Jack Abramoff. And the worst of the old anti-Semitic libels have been let loose again upon the world.

So the question becomes, who is really benefitting by all this?

5) There's a word that I used up there where I was talking about my grandmother: traumatized. It occurred to me years ago that the survivors of the Holocaust were much like the survivors of childhood abuse, and that much about the nature and policies of the Israeli state was a reflection of that fact. But I never knew where to go with that observation.

Now Jeff's post highlights a new aspect of abuse survivors: handlers. If individuals are vulnerable to being taken over and managed by outside handlers with an agenda of their own, how vulnerable might a whole nation of survivors be?

And if Israel has its handlers, then who are they and what is their agenda? And how do those American Jews who are eager to whore themselves out for the sake of being accepted by the system fit into the process?

6) I probably exaggerated when I said my grandmother viewed the Israelis with something like contempt. Her real contempt was reserved for Jewish Republicans. She once told me an anecdote about some relative or acquaintance back in the depths of the Depression who'd said to her, "Oh, I'm doing pretty well for myself, so I'm voting Republican." The venom that dripped from her voice as she repeated that phrase cannot easily be conveyed.

My grandmother was of a simpler era, when it was easier to tell who were the Black Hats and who were the White Hats. I'm not advocating adopting her viewpoint. But I think it can remind us of something important we are inclined to forget:

The real "handlers" are much higher up in the food-chain than either Israel or the Neocons. And, perhaps most significant, they have no love for the Jews.

"TREASONGATE: THE FELONY MURDER RULE - The Iraq War Fraud Could Lead To State Court Prosecutions For Murder American Soldiers

Ordinarily, the President, as Commander In Chief, and his Executive Branch, could not be held legally responsible for the death of US soldiers on the battlefield. But if congressional, military and monetary support for the Iraq war was procured through a fraudulent criminal conspiracy, the Bush syndicate will have no protection from prosecution in state courts -- out of jurisdicitonal reach of the President's pardon power -- which is limited by the Constitution to federal crimes against the United States."

Most responses have missed the most perplexing aspect of the post: an Aryan boasted of inserting an 'Impeach Bush' piece! This also begs the question of why Pat-Son-of-a-Senator-Robertson wrote a book called "New World Order" when he is part of the ascendent New Right. It conspicuously calls attention to the fact that so many false prophets are preaching about an end-time filled with false prophets. This issue must be analyzed from many different angles:-the smear-many different people will be lumped together with anti-semitists and xenophobic isolationists.-the base-these far right cadres are given a taste of reality in order to bedazzle them with 'prophecy.'-the endgame-whenever the house of cards falls, Aryan separatists will have a malleable and independent world view to work from. When Bush Co. successfully bankrupt the country and hand it over to IMF/WB, the Syndicate will still have a lever to exert pressure on IMF/WB. -strategy of tension-the entire spectrum of the Right is in need of the same alienation as we all are, and their fantasies are allowed to proliferate so long as they keep taking orders. when they step out of line, nobody's gonna miss them.

I have been giving much thought to this recently. This is a fascinating topic and one that I believe pierces the heart of what is currently before us in the Middle East.

“What's truly ironic is we see the same sick alliances today that we saw in World War II: the dual-citizen Zionist 'Neocons' are collaborating with the offspring of the Wall Street industrialists who financed Hitler's rise to power (A.k.a. the Bush family).

Exactly. ie. the Nazi SS _ Hagana alliance in 1937. This is something I have not as of yet been able to completely wrap my head around. The Zionist NeoCons and Sharon are not stupid, obviously. But, they are playing a very very deadly game. The entire “war for Israel” rubbish is just a smoke screen…

“The real "handlers" are much higher up in the food-chain than either Israel or the Neocons. And, perhaps most significant, they have no love for the Jews.”

Precisely. How refreshing to read this.

The psychology behind the state of Israeli’s apparent flirtation with suicide merits much more investigation.

“…In fact it can be argued that all roads lead to Wall Street on this one…”

Yes, but George HW Bush is working on his legacy and the legacy of the Bush family at the moment…and this is what it’s all about…for the most part. Rich people always want to leave something behind…a lasting imprint. It’s more than just about money. How much more money can one possibly have ?

Anyhow, the Zionist Neocon purge has finally arrived. (see Brent Scowcroft ) They military-industrial complex and the Bush family exploited the NeoCon ideology in regards to Israel, the Middle East and the "war on terror." They created the National Security Strategy of the US from it and now they’ve served their purpose and are being discarded into the trash heap. No Jews, however fascist they might be, should have been allowed in the first place.

Some background and commentary:

Sharon's best weapon Anti-semitism sustains Israel's brutal leader - the fight against it must be reclaimed http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,690226,00.html

Demoralizing, dividing, sowing disinformation are all tactics easily deployed at websites and I suspect the CIA/Pentagon provides ideas and even plausibly deniable funding to neo-Nazi groups to help them stir things up and get people to turn on each other or shy away from potentially inflammatory topics in much the same way it took courage to talk about race relations when the heat of the Civil Rights movement and the Black Panthers were current (as they should still be post-Kamp Katrina) and liberals were encouraged to flee to using even more alienating 'politically correct' language thereby taking topics completely off the public table. The topic of Israel has been successfully exploited to achieve maximum heat with minimum light for ages. With today's neocon exploitation of emotions about 'good' and 'evil' to get domestic support for permanent oil war, this intentional sowing of racism is as dangerous as when Hitler used it.

I notice that Jeff's linked discussion board thread warning of the sneaky Stormfront neo-Nazi website infiltration tactic had my post deleted from it. I don't want to talk about me- me-me or incite old flames but the topic is exactly relevent to Jeff's article today so I'll expand on it. (Hey-if your post was deleted from a front-page link you'd wonder why, too.)

My post described how division and accusations from a couple of RI discussion board users looking for 'coded language' had flustered me but with the added perspective of reading some British National Party-supporting-neo-Nazi users showing up at RI recently and this recently exposed Stormfront website infiltration tactic I finally understood what I had inadvertantly stepped into by bringing up topics discussed below.

What Jeff probably wants to minimize as a temporary problem is the fact that the Rigorous Intuition discussion board got a dose of COINTELPRO divisive poison just at a time when the White House is on the ropes with AIPAC/Larry Franklin spying and Plamegate indictments and Abu Ghraib pics on the way. What better time to insert anti-semitic venom into an otherwise extremely rational and knowledgable discourse on the parapolitics of the neocons at boards like RI? Eats up lots of energy, changes the focus, and chills discussion on topics or participation at all.

I suppose Jeff did the right thing by sequestering the neo-Nazi sympathizers and their verbal bouts with rightly outraged and vigilant opponents in a new forum called the Fire Pit but I question the need to delete my post elucidating how the COINTELPRO tactic of spreading overtly racist views to incite suspicion and vigilant over "coded language" on even this website should be a warning to others that suspicion and accusation are just as dangerous and easier to arouse in thinking adults than racial hatred which tends to be imbued in childhood. So thanks, Jeff, for the warning against racism. Forewarned is forearmed.

But Jeff missed the COINTELPRO danger of accusing people of racism. And after he hit Ramsey Clark hard for suspicion of being a 35 year-long COINTELPRO agent working with ANSWER after hundreds of thousands of Americans protested against the Iraq War. More on this below.

(No, this isn't a hijacking post about Ramsey Clark. It is about the use of the tag 'anti-semite' as a RIGHT-WING weapon to neutralize some of the left.)

Jeff's best writing is on topic of sophisticated manipulation of psychology by intelligence agencies and the use of the word 'Jew' as an emotional tactic related to 'good' and 'evil' is unmatched except perhaps by the word 'sex' and more specifically 'homosexual.'

--And as an aside, here is an OSS/CIA WWII document suggesting weaponizing homosexuality:http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/oss/homosexuals15jan1942.jpg(Use of Homosexuals in Intelligence Work 1/15/42)

The US government has long used Nazis as assets to terrorize the people (Mae Brussell did groundbreaking work exposing this after JFK was killed) http://www.maebrussell.com/Mae%20Brussell%20Articles/Nazi%20Connection%20to%20JFK%20Assass.html(The Nazi Connection to the JFK Assassination)and it works on the anonyomous internet, too, if only to get people shy about topics lest the brawling come at them. I think this is what just erupted at RI over the topic of Lyndon Larouche (I introduced the topic and got slammed as a potential baseball bat-wielding cultist! Apparantly Larouche followers did things like that in the 70s) who has said vicously reprehensible things about both Jews and gays (thanks, DreamsEnd for the info) yet also has an organization with some useful info on CIA dirty tricks. This dual morality of the bad watching the worse has been used to reinforce the Conspiracy Theory = Anti-Semitism meme that the State Department amplified to 'help' us discern 'disinformation.' I made the analogy in that discussion to Miles Davis being violent with women but blowing a great horn. Some don't want to hear anything abusers say. Personally, I can't listen to Miles without seeing abused women and thus can't enjoy his music so I do understand that criticism.

Another example of the "conspiracy theory = anti-semite" meme protecting the CIA:

Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark (who Jeff suggested was a COINTELPRO-type discrediting fake lefty the day after the 9/24/05 anti-war protests) has spent a generation criticising US imperialism and focusing on CIA abuses but got tarred as a 'Nazi supporter' back in the 80s when the US government formed a white-wash 'limited hang-out' Office of Special Investigations to deport a low-level former concentration camp guard (who Ramsey attempted to defend as a political victim) in order to cover up Project Paperclip importation of high-level Nazi assets like Adolph Eichmann's assistants (documents revealed this year) and the use of Klaus Barbie as a CIA operative running death squads in South America as revealed by Barbie's own CIA handler in the early 80s. (Thanks, proldic, for the pointer.)http://www.archives.gov/iwg/research-papers/weitzman-remarks-june-1999.html(Mark WeitzmanRemarks before the Nazi War Criminals Interagency Working Group (Simon Wiesenthal Center, Los Angeles, June 24, 1999)

For an interesting 1998 essay on CIA abuses and their secret government by Ramsey Clark in the CIA-watching magazine CovertAction Quarterly, read Clark's comments here:http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/CIA/CorruptionCovertActions.html

NOTE: Jeff excoriated R. Clark for not outing the cover-up of the CIA's killing of JFK, RFK, and MLK.In the above essay Clark writes:

"So we should not be surprised that patriotic Americans wonder whether, or even charge that, the U.S. government assassinated President John F. Kennedy and our greatest moral leader, Martin Luther King, Jr."

Larouche, on the other hand, is truly anti-semitic. There the accusation sticks but it is made AT ALL because Larouche's organisation has the goods on CIA and the role of economics in war. So he serves well the CIA tactic of tying Conspiracy Theory to equaling Anti-Semitism. They want people to be afraid to inquire lest they be branded a hateful nut.

Someone to study as the penultimate psy-ops artist weaving "Conspiracism" with "Anti-Semitism" is Chip Berlet who runs Political Research Associates FOR THE CIA. He savages the FBI for COINTELPRO-type abuses (true) as a diversion away from the much worse abuses by the CIA and as a way to establish his credentials as a 'right-wing' watch dog looking out for our civil rights in order to ingratiate himself with the left. HA!

His website is a classic example of state-of-the-art psychological operations to neutralize the left by developing in great detail the "conspiracy = crazy" cultural cloaking device built over decades by the CIA and its allies in the media:http://www.publiceye.org/top_conspire.html#debunk_conspiracism

Chip Berlet has made a career of creating an identity as a right-wing watchdog and then including some of the CIA's biggest exposers in his lists to neutralize them. Chip Berlet has done this to:

1) L. Fletcher Prouty, Air Force /CIA liason 1955-1963 who wrote The Secret Team detailing how the CIA took over the US government and killed JFK who opposed it. Available online at:http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/ST/ST.html("The Secret Team, The CIA and Its Allies in Control of the United States and the World")

2) Mark Lane, attorney who first questioned the Warren Commission Report and went on to successfully tie E. Howard Hunt to the CIA and the killing of JFK in a libel suit against the Liberty Lobby's Spotlight magazine which ran CIA whistleblower Victor Marchetti's opinion that the CIA would throw Hunt to the 1978 House Committee on Assassinations as a 'limited hang-out' tactic. Read his 1992 book, 'Plausible Denial' for that story. Associating the Liberty Lobby with the E. Howard Hunt/CIA/JFK trial also fed the "conspiracy theory = right-wing/anti-semite" meme.

3) Lyndon Larouche who really IS anti-semitic but is dangerous to Berlet's client, the CIA, for having focused on the economics behind the CIA (tasked to enforce economic exploitation at the behest of the Council on Foreign Relations) and establishing his own watch dog organization to counter them, a case of the nasty watching the atrocious.

This outcome is a US military psychological operations goal as outlined in recently declassified WWII Office of Special Services Morale Operations (psy-ops) documents. 'Freedom stations' are described as small radio stations used for psy-ops and it seems to me that websites are used in exactly the same way.

Here is a WWII outline for planning 'morale operations' (MO):http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/oss/psywaroutlinenotes.htm(Ideas for an Outline of Psychological Warfare)

This troubles me to hear, because I didn't delete it. Watchful Citizen, are you referring to your post with the subject header "Ah. This explains the atmosphere birthing the Fire Pit." on this page? It's still there, at least when I open up the thread. Or do you mean another post? Comments have occasionally gone missing on the blog as well, and unless it's spam, I haven't deleted them, it's been a glitch of the software. If your post is missing, I'm sorry, it wasn't my doing.

If you folks keep on harping on about the 'left' and the 'right,' you'll miss the gun pointed right between your eyes. Ayn Rand summed up this false dichotomy in this way:

"The left wants a dictatorship of the poor, and the right wants a dictatorship of the rich. Both want a dictatorship."

The fact of the matter is that people (at the behest of the cultural elites) are still stuck using an 18th century construct from the pangs of the French Revolution to artificially describe the deep politics of today. No wonder nothing substantive is getting done to fix the problem.

The principal parties opposing each other are in fact the state (including the front and shadow governments) and its corporate sponsors and everyone else who doesn't fall into those categories, ie; the people. The minute people give up their irrational fairy tales of the ruling class taking the people's interests over their own at the expense of their own interests, then you might see some progress.

to expand on sarroute's post, the same could be said of america, of israel...we are states of alienation. due to our traumatization we are narcissists.

Narcissism has widely been seen as being synonymous with overlapping characteristics such as the following: self-absorption, an overriding sense of personal significance, grandiosity and self-inflation, self-importance, unresponsiveness to others, and a veritable craving to be seen, admired, and worshipped—that is, to be the center of attention, no matter the cost.

a bully. weakness personified as strength. (israel and america)

A narcissistically-inclined personality will tend to rub more well-adjusted persons the wrong way. One who has been arrested by the Myth of Narcissus, if you will, tends to be profoundly unresponsive to the offerings of real warmth, affection, and fellowship being extended by others.

myth of narcissus.

It is no coincidence that in the ancient Greek myth Narcissus ended up all alone, gazing at his own self-image. Narcissus found himself unable to respond to Echo—to reciprocate in kind. Echo, broken-hearted retreated into the forest. Narcissus, self-absorbed became isolated from any and all forms of authentic relatedness.

Narcissists are incapable of relationship. There is no real relationship with a narcissist

The narcissist—for any number of reasons—has such a tight hold on him- or herself. The narcissist cannot seem to let go. The 'self' needs to be protected. The 'self' needs to be seen by others and admired. And if not then the narcissist will find a way to demand attention, i.e., the narcissist will fly off into a rage, become more boisterous, show-off, brag, exaggerate the truth, etc. and so forth.

The narcissist, quite simply put, needs be an object of people's attention—the center of their attention! Somehow, someway… whatever it takes… the narcissist will find a way to capture people's attention. For the narcissist cannot bear to not be an object people attend to.

I feel like I am getting closer to the Collective Consciousness of America. I get this sense that America is full of once desperate people, who, for any number of reasons, were not attended to—paid homage to, noticed, taken into account—in their countries of origin. In a sense, then, everyone in America has come from an ancestry of dismissal. Everyone here is living in exile. Beginning with immigrants that had to leave Europe because they were living under derisive conditions.

Back to narcissism. Certain psychoanalytical theorists have suggested that narcissism may be the result of a child feeling a surfeit of attention and nurturing as infants. So, in some cases it becomes suggested that this 'deficit of being attended to' is precisely what the narcissist attempts to overcome for the rest of his or her adult life. In short, one needs to be seen and paid homage to because one was not seen enough as a child.

America is not the land of dreams for no reason. It ought not be considered strange that America has become the country that both captures as well as demands the most attention on the World-Stage. Yes, America tries to hog the lime-light because we may very well be a country that is a collection of persons all trying to make up for a lack of respect and appreciation. Think about it, America has been the country of opportunity for the 'dispossessed,' for the 'huddled masses,' for those who have been run out of their country of birth and origin. So it should come as no surprise that America would become a nation with a 'chip on its shoulder,' a nation with 'something to prove'—a nation made up of those people who, for all sorts of reasons, have this need to impress upon the world that they are somebody… and that they will be respected.

The attitude is something along the lines of 'We'll show you!' We'll show you by being innovative, by building the biggest buildings, by our productivity and our efficiency. We'll show you by our talents and our gifts—by being entertaining and exciting, daring and adventurous. We'll show you. We'll impress upon you our greatness, our courage, our daring, our spirit, our ingenuity, our determination, our perseverance, our bravery, and our genius. We'll show you that you were wrong about us. We'll show you how great we can be.

We are a country of exiled people who have been driven out of Europe because of social, economic, and religious persecution. We are a country of exiled people who have been forced to come to these shores as slaves. Hell yeah we have a lot to prove. We have to prove that we are not a 'lesser peoples' because we are African, Jewish, Irish, Polish, or of the 'lowest class.' We have to prove that we are not stupid… that we are not ignorant… that we are not heretics… that we are not filthy creatures.

a myth for outcasts...the bible myth..the oppressed jews. like israel, like america.

And don't think for a minute that we won't relish rubbing it in your face when we succeed. Don't think for a minute that we won't take some pleasure in proving to the world we are all that we know we can be, if but given the opportunity and the freedom to prove so.

Just imagine yourself being pushed out of a group, run out of a community, isolated socially and culturally. It would seem to me that in such an instance we have but one of two choices: either to be defeated by it, or to use that experience as fuel in order to fire our passion for success and achievement.

america is that personification of alienation.

It should come as no surprise that many—if not most—of America's greatest achievements have come straight from the experience of immigrants, exiles, and outcasts. Those who were denied opportunities to explore and cultivate their unique talents and gifts elsewhere found sanctuary in America. A young country also as in need of this talent in order to emerge as a nation worthy of international respect and admiration. In many ways, this means that America as a young nation, and the immigrant experience of exile, represented a unique situation wherein a young nation received the influx of talent that it needed, while immigrants received the opportunities to gain respect through the use of their talents that was denied them elsewhere. It was truly a 'win-win situation.' America needed immigrants and exiles and outcasts. Outcasts and exiles and immigrants needed America.

Nations, not unlike Nature, have their seasons. The brash, rebelliousness of a young nation bourne of revolution in time becomes a conservative establishment entrenched in a position of power and prestige… and doing everything it can think of to hang onto that position.

America's recent turn to the conservative-side of the ledger might be evidence for the prominence of the establishment that America has become. After all, bear in mind that America sought to become an established global power respected by other nations and peoples. If this has come to pass, then it is only a sensible argument to contend that America has become what it sought to be—which in many ways, is everything that America originally despised and fought against.

A dominant power. A coercive force. A military juggernaut. The establishment. The status quo. A conservative force that has accumulated great power, which then does everything it can to hang onto what it has accumulated.

it tends to be true...you become what you originally hated..all consuming...our handlers, the illuminati, have control.

What a great post from Starroute and an equally brilliant follow-up from Dugoboy. Thanks to you both.

The concept of the survivor falling into the hands of a subsequent rescuer/protector/handler is one I know well. It has long been my view that trauma survivors are faced with a very stark choice - to side with the abusers (thinking this is the way it's played and this is the way to win) OR reject abuse and exploitation entirely. There really isn't much middle ground. This choice fashions the subsequent life for the survivor and perhaps nations.

And Watchful Citizen, you have given me enough to keep me off the streets for a week!

The things I look for when assessing posters and websites as being disinfo or not are:-addressing the issues or the authors;referencing sources;use of symbols and catch-phrases;"academic" complexity and jargon;ANDwhat's missing? What obvious fact or conclusion is being ignored, if any?

Joe Vialls said in looking for govt involvement in disasters, look for what didn't happen but should have. It's the most telling give away and the hardest to cover once you go looking for it.

A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.- Lao Tzu

You area conspiracy theorist, and you probably don't even know it.

You read about conspiracy theories everyday in your newspaper. You hear about conspiracy theories everynight on the evening news telecast. You gather around office watercoolers, and you talk about conspiracy theories-- and most of the time, you believe in them without realizing that you have made a leap of faith to do so. You see, you believe in conspiracy theories in such instances where the conspiracy theory does not make you feel uncomfortable.

Then suddenly, along comes a well-supported, factually based conspiracy theory to make you feel squeemish. A conspiracy theory that challenges your beliefs. A theory that causes you to question your worldview, and perhaps even your identity. A conspiracy theory that would require you to make a paradigm shift just in order to examine it. And it is at this point that you "rationally" decide to denounce conspiracy theories. It is at this point where cognitive dissonance takes place, and you belittle the entire notion of conspiracy theories altogether (even though you believe in them elsewhere, perhaps unknowingly). It is at this point where you scoff and make references to "tin foil hats" and a living Elvis Presley.

It is only when a non-dominant, progressive, or controversial alternative theory or description of events is set forth, that you choose to backhandedly dismiss conspiracy theories with absolute finality. If a particular conspiracy theory illicits an uncomfortable feeling, beckons self-examination and/or a paradigm shift, more likely than not, you will deem that theory 'irrebuttably false.'

At the point where a conspiracy theory challenges your world view, you suddenly use the term "conspiracy theory" as a perjorative term.

Oh, the hypocrisy!

A "conspiracy" is defined as "an agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime or accomplish a legal purpose through illegal action."

A "theory" is defined as, "a set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena."

Let's look at a couple examples, shall we?

Story #1First we have the following news item reported by Reuters today: "HARARE, Zimbabwe (Reuters) -- President Robert Mugabe's guards briefly detained the U.S. ambassador to Zimbabwe after he entered a restricted security zone near the African leader's residence, state television reported Thursday....[snip]....a calculated disregard of the rules governing relations between states ... clearly intended to provoke an unwarranted diplomatic incident." In this story, Reuters is reporting that more than one guard calculatedly (e.g. by agreement, either expressed or implied) broke rules governing relations between states. This is a story about an alleged conspiracy-- a group of people coming together to break a rule or law.

Now, who would question this story's veracity? In my estimation, most people would likely accept this story without any extra scrutiny. After all, the story does not cause us any personal discomfort, nor does it provoke us to examine ourselves. The story does not challenge any of our world views. Yet this story is unquestionably a conspiracy theory.

Is the story true? We really do not know for certain, we are left to either trust the media's description of events or not.

Story #2Next, on Aug. 5, 1964, American news media reported that North Vietnamese forces -- for the second time in three days -- had launched unprovoked (e.g. illegal) attacks on U.S. ships in the Tonkin Gulf. The New York Times claimed that the U.S. government was retaliating "after renewed attacks against American destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin." The Washington Post's headline stated: "American Planes Hit North Vietnam After Second Attack on Our Destroyers; Move Taken to Halt New Aggression."

Once again, here we have a conspiracy theory set forth by the news media. Similar to the present day Zimbabwe story, the Gulf of Tonkin story was, at that time, not too hard to swallow. In fact, the conspiracy theory was so believable when it was reported that, two days later, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was passed by Congress authorizing the president "to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression."

Essentially, the public's unflinching acceptance of the government and media's "conspiracy theory" set the stage for America's entrance into what became known as the Vietnam War. How many Americans even realized, at the time, that they bought into a conspiracy theory?

In the Tonkin case, history now shows us that the government and media presented a false conspiracy theory to the American public. Little did most people know at the time, but the Gulf of Tonkin incident, as theorized in the newspapers, was a lie. Recently released tapes of White House phone conversations indicate the attack probably never happened.

Now consider this. What would have happened if, at that time, another newspaper (or alternative media source) reported that the Gulf of Tonkin incident was a lie? What if somebody challenged the mainstream theory with credible evidence? In 1964, how many people would have considered the possibility that the Gulf of Tonkin incident was indeed a lie? In order to believe a "conspiracy theory" like that, one would have to face the uncomfortable possibility that the government or media was fabricating the truth. One would have to face the uncomfortable possibility that their country was capable of lying on a grand scale. Most likely, a person would have to experience a complete paradigm shift just to entertain critical examination of the alternate theory.

Essentailly, we would have two opposing conspiracy theories. Which one should we believe? The easiest theory to digest? The theory with the most evidence? The easiest theory to explain?

You see, this is where most people get a bit squeemish. This is where most people begin to invoke the "be rational" or "common sense" card. What many people do not realize though, is that they are invoking "rational thinking" and "common sense" not because they have suddenly partaken in critical examination, but merely because they are viscerally repugnant to the alternate theory. In essence, they are not being rational at all. They are being emotional.

Are conspiracy theories ever true? Of course. Generally speaking, preachers don't tell on preachers; soldiers don't tell on soldiers; cops don't tell on cops; doctors don't tell on doctors; and so on. Politicians will not turn on one another unless there is a greater goal to be gained. Conspiracies, for the most part, develop quite organically. Most of us don't tell on our friends, and from this, you can understand why we shouldn't just immediately shut ourselves off to the notion of a conspiracy.

Just look at the run up to the Iraq War. There may have been a conspiracy amongst the Neocons to take this country to war. Shouldn't we investigate it? Of course we should. We should investigate all colorable conspiracy theories, even the ones that make us feel squeemish. Even the ones that challenge popularly held theories of "facts."

Are conspiracy theories ever false? Of course. In fact, it's safe to say that they are false more often than they are not. But, we are not served by dismissing conspiracy altogether, we ARE served by investigating it. And by investigation, I mean critical investigation. The worst thing we could do is simply turn our attention away from conspiracy (or any other quest for knowledge, for that matter). By doing so, we allow them to go unchecked. We deny ourselves potential knowledge, and perhaps even justice.

This is why I laugh when I hear somebody use the term "conspiracy theory" as a perjorative term. I laugh because most people fail to recognize that conspiracy theories are everywhere, and more often than not, most people swallow conspiracy theories without recognizing that they have done so.

Gulp!

What we need is critical examination. What we need is an open mind. We need to examine theories, even when they make us feel sick to our stomach. And we need to dismiss theories only when they are no longer colorable. But so long as they are colorable, we must, at the minimum, keep our minds open to the possibility that they may be true.

As humans, we tend to seek absolute order. We crave answers. Generally speaking, we do not feel comfortable with the inherent insecurity of chaos. But it is from chaos that we may ultimately find knowledge and wisdom, even when we don't find absolute answers. It is the balance between order and chaos, knowing and not-knowing, believing and not believing, which brings us the greatest fruit. It is the marriage of doubt and faith which illuminates the never-ending path of knowledge.

BulldogManifesto's blog-post certainly applies to the general public--that is, those whose lives don't revolve around pedophilic reptilian overlords--but yeah, either the posters on this board and others like it have way too much time on their hands, or they're getting paid to write this stuff--

David Ray Griffin author of The New Pearl Harbor and The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions has a nice quote to innoculate against Thought Bombs on 9/11:

The question is not whether one is a conspiracy theorist about 9/11. It's which conspiracy theory do you find most supported by the evidence?"

Jeff's comments about dis-info are like Griffin's argument that the entire set of items (towers collapse, poor communication, changing official story, etc); just because one aspect of a non-official theory on 9/11 is suspect (ie, pods on planes), it is the cumulative effect that has evidentiary weight.

I believe that we really do no need the equivalent of McAffee Virus Scan for our brains. This will become even more important as we integrate with machines, as I believe will happen quite soon, a la Ray Kurzweil.

Just curious, but would someone that sees arrests of spies in the US Pentagon, and said spies are videotaped by law enforcement passing said documents to the American Israel Political Action Committee be "seeing Jews under every bed"? Funny how that was morphed from Zionist to Jew there, Jeff. I've always admired your wordsmithing.

In my admittedly limited experience with Zionists and their actions, I would add this to your "A Nazi is always a Nazi": Since they were allies in WWII, I feel safe to add " A Zionist is always a Zionist".

And I also see we leave the controlled Demolition of WTC 7 out of the "evidence" you like to put forward. Of course, let's ignore the perfectly cut into 30' long steel beams for hauling away, yeah? Let's ignore everything we know about physics, and celebrate the new Afghani "Al-Ciada" method of controlled demo: No need for computer aided design of placement of charges, sequence of ignition and amount of explosive, no no no.

Simply pour kerosene into top of building, light it off, watch it fall PERFECTLY into footprint.

Makes ya wonder why folks hire the expensive technicians at CDI to bring down buildings when @ $25,000 worth of kerosene work PERFECTLY EVERY TIME, yeah?

In America, the race is called "American". If you want to talk about your ancestry, then do so, but it's not called "white." It would start with you doing genealogy, and learning about where known ancestors came from, like someone who goes to the cletic festival, or the polish festivals, or Oktoberfest events, etc. If being "an American" isn't special enough for you, you can be a fillintheblank-American. Celebrate the great western tradition. Stand up for enlightenment values. Whatever. But why go around saying: "look at me! I'm white and I'm proud!" proud as opposed to what? Be honest at least and say, "I'm pinkish-tan and proud!"

Generally race-pride stuff is used by those who want war in the same way as rabid nationalism, it's step one for the killer-king to be, build-up your base with pride of self and fear of other. step two is point them at your target. Then your race or nation pulls the triggers.

Be proud as a human. Be proud of your country, it's not all bad (the people can be damn fine when not divided against themselves). Be proud if you must, but I think the bible calls pride a sin. I prefer to live without something so simple as pride. Hold things in esteem. Know the value of things. Take in as much as possible of the content of the culture. Be ready to protect the things you value. Let pride rest, use it only on weekends for fun.

Thanks to our host for an entry that incorporates the White House's deflections, MK-Ultra handlers, Aryan boasts of infiltrations, and neatly dovetails it into a piece that addresses anxieties of Cointel-style manipulations which few posters (myself included) have voiced on this site.

For my part, I do believe that people set knots in their opponent's nets -those that don't believe they can win at a game that isn't fixed, anyway.

For the amount of effort it takes nowadays to successfully seed a distracting spin on an existing situation, the return is well-worth it!

It's cheaper than it used to be to influence popular discussion; there are no printing costs, for example (which makes me doubt that most of those doing so expect to be paid anything more than attention)

But, consider true believers, Nazis & apocalyptics for example, who bring a set of identifications that translate data into the scenario they are so sure of. Expect that they aren't really trying to understand things the way you might be and may not trust you to work through it yourself, either. And they will do it out of luv.

Which is way Nazi propaganda is a special breed: from before the start of the Third Reich through to its many post-war satelites in the years after, its goals are animosity, division & the subversion of ALL ranks of society with the goal of taking over when the rot has set in.

I'm glad you are staying sharp, Jeff

and, tho the subject was dropped, I have to goof on the concept brought up by Anonymous 10:37 that it is white men alone who are not able to voice their cultural pride, a conceit that has irritated me for years....

C'mon... Irish have pubs & Bloomsbury Day, Germans have Octoberfest & the Goethe Institute, French have bistros and the Loevre, etc etc...If you haven't been able to find a place to enjoy your publicly enjoy your heritage (whatever that is), my guess is that you haven't tried very hard.

That 'poor cursed whiteman' stuff is self-martyring nonsense

that is the kind of thing Limbaugh says, without a trace of irony, to the millions of other white guys listening to his hugely popular mainstream radio show

and, as Anon says when they returned at 11:51"PS- love this site, and it's intelligent discourse."

The majority of the aircraft that purportedly hit the Pentagon disintegrated, for the most part, and the majority of the damge was limited, for the most part to the outer ring, however, apparently one of the engines managed to puncture through not just the first ring, not just the second ring, but alas, the thrid ring.

I find that peculiar, and when I bring it up in discussion, it is often too easily dismissed.

Does anyone have a scientifically valid explanation for this?

I'm not saying a missile hit the Pentagon, but I am saying that the story as presented is not complete and there are disturbing inconsistencies, this being just one.

DOH! Mea culpa - My own large mistake, Jeff. - My post was NOT deleted and thank you for pointing out it was on page 2 of the thread and I screwed up by only seeing page 1 when you linked to it in your front page article.

Um...I swear I didn't mean to add fuel to the fire when I thought my original post wasn't there. (Oh well. I get lots of other things right, I think.)

The rest of my post about using right-wing labels to avert attention and repel discourse stands however with their sources as available links. The US intelligence/Nazi alliance is a historical topic every American needs to be warned about so they can warn others.

Zionist/Jewish domination of the U.S. is well documeted. As is their hatred of gentiles.

borrowed from http://www.whatreallyhappened.com1. "There is a huge gap between us (Jews) and our enemies ­not just in ability but in morality, culture, sanctity of life, and conscience. They are our neighbors here, but it seems as if at a distance of a few hundred meters away, there are people who do not belong to our continent, to our world, but actually belong to a different galaxy." Israeli president Moshe Katsav. The Jerusalem Post, May 10, 2001

2. "The Palestinians are like crocodiles, the more you give them meat, they want more".... Ehud Barak, Prime Minister of Israel at the time - August 28, 2000. Reported in the Jerusalem Post August 30, 2000

3. " [The Palestinians are] beasts walking on two legs." Menahim Begin, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, "Begin and the Beasts". New Statesman, 25 June 1982.

4. "The Palestinians" would be crushed like grasshoppers ... heads smashed against the boulders and walls." " Isreali Prime Minister (at the time) in a speech to Jewish settlers New York Times April 1, 1988

5. "When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle." Raphael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defence Forces, New York Times, 14 April 1983.

6. "How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to." Golda Maier, March 8, 1969.

7. "There was no such thing as Palestinians, they never existed." Golda Maier Israeli Prime Minister June 15, 1969

8. "The thesis that the danger of genocide was hanging over us in June 1967 and that Israel was fighting for its physical existence is only bluff, which was born and developed after the war." Israeli General Matityahu Peled, Ha'aretz, 19 March 1972.

9. David Ben Gurion (the first Israeli Prime Minister): "If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti - Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault ? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?" Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), pp121.

10. Ben Gurion also warned in 1948 : "We must do everything to insure they ( the Palestinians) never do return." Assuring his fellow Zionists that Palestinians will never come back to their homes. "The old will die and the young will forget."

11. "We have to kill all the Palestinians unless they are resigned to live here as slaves." Chairman Heilbrun of the Committee for the Re-election of General Shlomo Lahat, the mayor of Tel Aviv, October 1983.

12. "Every time we do something you tell me America will do this and will do that . . . I want to tell you something very clear: Don't worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it." - Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, October 3, 2001, to Shimon Peres, as reported on Kol Yisrael radio.

13. "We declare openly that the Arabs have no right to settle on even one centimeter of Eretz Israel... Force is all they do or ever will understand. We shall use the ultimate force until the Palestinians come crawling to us on all fours." Rafael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces - Gad Becker, Yediot Ahronot 13 April 1983, New York Times 14 April 1983.

14. "We must do everything to ensure they [the Palestinian refugees] never do return" David Ben-Gurion, in his diary, 18 July 1948, quoted in Michael Bar Zohar's Ben-Gurion: the Armed Prophet, Prentice-Hall, 1967, p. 157.

15. "We should prepare to go over to the offensive. Our aim is to smash Lebanon, Trans-Jordan, and Syria. The weak point is Lebanon, for the Moslem regime is artificial and easy for us to undermine. We shall establish a Christian state there, and then we will smash the Arab Legion, eliminate Trans-Jordan; Syria will fall to us. We then bomb and move on and take Port Said, Alexandria and Sinai." David Ben-Gurion, May 1948, to the General Staff. From Ben-Gurion, A Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978.

16. "We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population." Israel Koenig, "The Koenig Memorandum"

17. "Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population." Moshe Dayan, address to the Technion, Haifa, reported in Haaretz, April 4, 1969.

18. "We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his question, What is to be done with the Palestinian population?' Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said 'Drive them out!'" Yitzhak Rabin, leaked censored version of Rabin memoirs, published in the New York Times, 23 October 1979.

19. Rabin's description of the conquest of Lydda, after the completion of Plan Dalet. "We shall reduce the Arab population to a community of woodcutters and waiters" Uri Lubrani, PM Ben-Gurion's special adviser on Arab Affairs, 1960. From "The Arabs in Israel" by Sabri Jiryas.

20. "There are some who believe that the non-Jewish population, even in a high percentage, within our borders will be more effectively under our surveillance; and there are some who believe the contrary, i.e., that it is easier to carry out surveillance over the activities of a neighbor than over those of a tenant. [I] tend to support the latter view and have an additional argument:...the need to sustain the character of the state which will henceforth be Jewish...with a non-Jewish minority limited to 15 percent. I had already reached this fundamental position as early as 1940 [and] it is entered in my diary." Joseph Weitz, head of the Jewish Agency's Colonization Department. From Israel: an Apartheid State by Uri Davis, p.5.

21. "Everybody has to move, run and grab as many hilltops as they can to enlarge the settlements because everything we take now will stay ours... Everything we don't grab will go to them." Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of militants from the extreme right-wing Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, November 15, 1998.

22. "It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism,colonialization or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands." Yoram Bar Porath, Yediot Aahronot, of 14 July 1972.

23. "Spirit the penniless population across the frontier by denying it employment... Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly." Theodore Herzl, founder of the World Zionist Organization, speaking of the Arabs of Palestine,Complete Diaries, June 12, 1895 entry.

25. "We Jews, we are the destroyers and will remain the destroyers. Nothing you can do will meet our demands and needs. We will forever destroy because we want a world of our own." (You Gentiles, by Jewish Author Maurice Samuels, p. 155).

26. "We will have a world government whether you like it or not. The only question is whether that government will be achieved by conquest or consent." (Jewish Banker Paul Warburg, February 17, 1950, as he testified before the U.S. Senate).

27. "We will establish ourselves in Palestine whether you like it or not...You can hasten our arrival or you can equally retard it. It is however better for you to help us so as to avoid our constructive powers being turned into a destructive power which will overthrow the world." (Chaim Weizmann, Published in "Judische Rundschau," No. 4, 1920)

And we're just talking about the dropping of the building, itself. Try getting to 'who owned it, who dropped it, who benefitted?' and you'll get some serious pushback from the limited hangout artists whose job it is to stop inquiring minds from figuring out what actually went down and why.

We have to be careful to not see disinformation everywhere. There is more just plain bad information in circulation than deliberate disinformation. Left to their own fancies, the fringe/conspiracy/parapolitic folks will hang themselves with their own rope. The fields we wander in draw a lot of unhinged people looking for easy answers.

As I've often said, it's very likely that the real disinformation agents spend most of their time laughing at the wilder stuff passed around the internets.

Re: Anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism is the achilles heel of conspiracy and parapolitical discourse. Sites like Rense are viciously anti-Semitic, though Jeff denies it -- and he probably believes he's being honest. But I've seen far too many "Zionist" posts that equate Zionists with Jews -- and not even subtly. And that f-ing graphic of an octopus with its tentacles wrapped around the globe is a permanent part of the site -- a direct imitation of a Nazi propaganda piece.

And look at Zundel's "flag" -- simply rearranged elements from the Nazi swastika flag. If Rense cares so much about free speech, he could find many more noble people to defend than that Nazi revisionist scumbucket.

Ultimately, I think it's better just to confront bad information than to run around crying "disinformation agent!" As we've seen in the RI forum, that can become an easy way to tar someone in a disagreement and stop the conversation dead.

Yes, there are people deliberately planting disinfo. Yet there is also just plain bad, speculative, and inflammatory information in general. There's far more chaff than wheat to sort through, which makes it even more important to remain rigorous in our research.

1. Israel is a nation state. Like all nation states, it commits the "legitimate" crimes that all nation states commit to "survive," whether from the crimes of other nation states, from powerful institutions, or from internal complacency.

2. Singling out Israel as especially pernicious, compared to say, China, Japan, England, France, Mexico, the United States, Canada, Norway, and so forth, smacks of at worst, cover racism, or at best, the ignorance that comes from failing to apply the same standard of scrutiny to other nation states. Does Israel oppress the Palestinians? Yes it does, out of the perceived need of those in power to do so to survive. Is this a foolish strategy? Unquestionably. Do the surrounding Muslim states seek eliminate Israel? Probably. Is this a foolish strategy? Unquestionably. But do the vast swaths of Muslims who populate these states hate the Jews? Unless they are incite to, most could probably care less. The Palestinians are used as a propaganda tool to incite hatred for Israel. But guess what, every country has its Palestinians. You want to incite hatred for the United States? Talk about what it did to the African slaves and their descendants, to the indigenous populations, the poor immigrants filled with dreams of streets paved with gold, to he migrant laborers, to those unfortunate enough to become junkies or otherwise mixed up in the drug trade at the lower levels. But every nation engages in these practices to varying degrees.

3. Nazism is way more about racism, racial pride, anti-semitism, and unmitigated, evil, sadistic acts. I had an epiphany once. I was watching a documentary at 4 a.m. about how a Polish village massacred its Jewish population during WWII, and then blamed it on the Einsatzgruppen. The motive was wealth and property. While much Holocaust history focuses on the propaganda and specific atrocities of the Nazis, less talked about is the massive amounts of property stolen from the Jews, and this theft as motive for extermination of the Jews. It gives a whole new meaning to the word, "liquidation." Nazi imperialism was financed, in part, by confiscated Jewish property, and Jewish slave labor. To the deniers: deny it all you want, but then after you've done so, kindly round the half to two thirds of my ancestors who "disappeared," and while you're at it, do so for every Jew I've talked to. It goes without saying that if you talk to a Jew, they'll have a lost a percentage of their family to the death camps. When I was a kid, I had trouble understanding what Eisenhower meant by the notion that all the Allied soldiers would be given tours of the death camps, so that nobody could deny it later. I didn't understand why anyone would want to cover it up. As for the Holocaust "industry," there is real paranoia that anti-Semitism will resurface. If Americans are gullible enough to believe a bunch of rustics living in an Afghani cave can penetrate American defenses, without cooperation from the so-called defenders of America, then they are gullible enough to believe that Israel was really behind it all along, and that the Jewish-controlled press covered it up. And they'll have their dancing Israeli articles to refer to, specially provided for them by FOX News. Or perhaps, it will really be China all along, or maybe the Iranians. It doesn't matter, so long as the "gangsterism" that lies at the core of Nazism can have a fresh generation of chattle to hoodwink, enslave, and slaughter. As I said earlier, the Israeli state policy towards the Palestinians is stupid. Equally stupid is the notion that an America at war with so-called radical, Islamic terrorists somehow benefits Israel. My first reaction as a Jew to 9/11, was "Oh my God, the party's over. A new cycle of killing is about to start. Where this will lead, nobody knows. Somebody wants to put an end to [I was naive at the time, I should have thought "finish killing off"] the American Republic. This is going to be used as an excuse to commit all kinds of atrocities."

4. The people in power now may be continuing a Nixon-era strategy to take out the Jews. Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. Historically, Jews have always been mere servants to Christian and Muslim power. By law, they collected taxes and were the financial middle-men in Europe. When the general public got tired of being exploited, the Jews served as an excellent scape-goat for the Christian nobles to wave in the faces of their serfs. And why should it be any different in America? The same motivators, the promise of property and personal power, that got those during the Nazi era to rise up and kill their Jewish neighbors, could be brought to bear again. Will they? Who knows, but I certainly no longer dismiss the possibility. We can be sure that those in the White Nationalist movements will be at the "Vanguard," leading the way for all the timid, crypto-Nazis to follow. These pet criminal dissidents will be used by the real powers to do the dirty work. After all, if you want to do something, you can't rely on the "good" to help you (they're too constrained by law and morality), you need those that are quick to hear threats, the petty criminals and so forth. [I forget which Nazi said that last bit . . . ]

5. Hopefully, all of the above is just a manifestation of my Jewish persecution complex.

"Those who would protest that the military and intelligence communities are full of patriots would do well to remember just how spirited their defense of America actually was on 9/11. Payne Stewart's plane can get an interception in less than 20 minutes, but not a damn military or intelligence officer lifted a finger to save the American people that day. And not a single person was hung for treason or dereliction of duty. That in itself speaks volumes."

It does indeed speak volumes - the reason they didn't lift a finger is obvious: No airliner hit the North Tower; no airliner hit the South Tower; no airliner hit the Pentagon; there were no airliners involved in the 9/11 hits. Try missiles.

Whatever happened to the passengers (did all of them actually exist?) and crews of the pseudo-hijacked flights AA11 & 77 and UA 93 & 175 - how, where and when they were killed - is anybody's guess. My guess: they were all blown to bits over Pennsylvania at 10/05am on 9/11/2001.

Consider how unproductive and cliched debates about race, ethnicity, and group identity tend to be, once they begin revolving around notions of "Pride." I think that once an individual accepts or embraces the premise that "Pride" is a good thing, they're, like, doomed to stagnation.

The antidotes to Pride are honesty, humility, and humor.

Pride is humorless. Pride is insecure and unaware of its own tendency toward obnoxiousness. Pride demands that others play along with one's own inflated ideas of self-worth. Pride has a shadow side that's inseparable, called Humiliation.

What gives Pride it's persisting appeal? Male vanity, for one thing. Probably the main thing. Maybe the only thing.

Hey, I'm just being honest ;^)

"Me so great..." What an asshole that person is. Always has to win, or else feel humiliated.

It doesn't help when Pride gets hyped as something positive. Pride is never positive. When it comes to an ascribed group identity- something someone is born into, rather than achieving- it's at its most perilous. In that circumstance, Pride drags down and narrows the best, while exalting the unworthy. It 's a false leveller. Recognition of a common level is honest, when it's authentic. When it's bogus, it's a house divided against itself. Pride tacitly demands a double standard.

Pride is more understandable when it's the result of individual accomplishment than when it's conferred simply by group membership. Unlike an ascribed status such as ethnicity or cultural heritage, which is arbitrary and irrational, achieved status at least has an authentic basis. But Pride is best rejected, because accpeting it carries costs that are inescapable. Pride is inherently insecure. Ability is always vulnerable to decline. Achievement is always vulnerable to being surpassed. Accomplishment is always vulnerable to being forgotten. What becomes of Pride, then? As the achieved status declines, Pride gives way to Humiliation. Pride goeth before a fall, and a haughty spirit before destruction.

If it's absurdity were only recognized, Pride wouldn't be such a problem. But Pride demands to be taken seriously, as part of its inherent nature. Humorless. What a waste of time. Pride is ruled by domination and submission. Enslaved by the concept, incapable of seeing the world as anything but a zero-sum gamer. And as if that wren't enough, Pride always trends toward wanting to make everything a matter of life or death.

Why does Pride get such good press? Because it's the evil twin of Dignity, and they're easily confused. The resemblance can be quite striking. Both have a charismatic aura. But the shadow side of Pride is Humiliation, while the shadow side of Dignity is Humility. The honestly humble person can't be personally humiliated. The saving grace of humility is humor. A truly dignified and humble person maintains too much of a sense of humor to take slights or insults aimed at the personal ego seriously. They can be oppressed, impoverished, indentured, injured...but not humiliated.

What is Dignity? I like the definition I found in a dictionary once: "justified self-respect." Straight and to the point.

Dignity prvides the stability to prevail over the gamut of sufferings, even the travails of its nemesis Indignity, with resilience, calmness and equanimity, and is able to come out the other side stronger.

And Dignity refuses to respond to Indignity with Indignity, even when victory, power, and strength allows it that opportunity. Dignity has too much self-respect to injure itself with such a bitter, hollow indulgence.

Pride doesn't confer that sort of evolutionary advantage to those who accept its false premises and inflated promises. Pride is rigid, touchy, and unbalanced by the slightest upset, even when inflicted unintentionally. Pride is paranoid and obsessed with revenge.

Pride can't bring itself to admit that it's ever wrong. Why? Fear of its shadow, Humiliation. At it's worst, Pride will kill a bystander for scuffing its shoes- and it will kill its host before admitting that it's wrong. Deadly serious, forever in search of molehills to turn into mountains.

Pride never laughs at itself. It only pretends to, when it's forced to, for appearances sake. What a miserable, insight-denying trait to be tricked into including in one's character, as if one would be nothing without Pride.

Dignity doesn't have that downside. It doesn't fear its shadow, Humility. Dignity is capable of correcting its personal mistakes, even painful and costly ones. Because it can laugh at itself. Uproariously. Humility can't learn about it's mistakes fast enough, in fact. Can't get too much comedy material.

So, what's it going to be- Pride or Dignity?

Don't tell me...you're still thinking.

Don't make me cap on the whole human race, now. Once I get started, I might not quit.

Dag, I'm feeling pompous this morning...just wrote a sermon, and dropped it on someone else's website...is that better than canned spam, or what?

There's just so much on his site which is worth reading, and so much on his daily broadcast which is worth listening to, that I would no sooner think of labeling him "anti-Semitic" than I would a library which carries a copy of Mein Kampf.

Not to say that I'm not somewhat troubled by his choice of Ernst Zundel for special championing--though the Zundel case does highlight how the US, in spite of everything, remains a First Amendment haven of free speech in comparison to a privately owned corporation like Canada, where if you say anything that offends the Crown, you land in jail and/or get deported.

(Sorry, Canadians, but you're living in a world of delusion if you think you inhabit a country that's independent and free. Your head of state inherits your entire country, by birthright, from across the globe. Your "Constitution" is a mere act of parliament, repealable in London the day after tomorrow at the drop of the hat. I know it's fun being a kid, but the infantile state of Canadian politics is a stage that you should arguably have outgrown quite some time ago. Independence for Canada, anyone?)

The topic of anti-Semitism/anti-Zionism and so on remains endlessly complicated. I think that it's always worth pointing out that Arabic is a Semitic language (look it up), and the Arabs a Semitic people. I used to laugh out loud at hearing Saddam Hussein called an "anti-Semite." That amounts to calling a Norwegian-hating Swede an "anti-Scandinavian."

Not to split hairs, but I'm sorry: how is being anti-Jewish fundamentally worse (or better, for that matter) than being anti-Arab, or specifically anti-Palestinian?

I like how you have dealt with the line between anti-semitism and anti Zionism. I think the supporters of sharreah are the second kind. They tell me they are anyway but when they preach the lines are blurred more than I like.

Whether there is the "anti-semitic core" or not in what they say people should be able to judge for themselves.